


Just Friends

by Liyyah



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Childhood Friends, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 14:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liyyah/pseuds/Liyyah
Summary: While drunk, Harvey throws caution to the wind and makes out with his best friend, who he’s secretly in love with. But reality catches up to him the next morning.





	Just Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a very loose combination of the prompts ‘au senior year of high school’ and ‘they end up making out at a party, unbeknownst it’s with each other/or one of them knows and goes after the other in costume’ from darveyfics

Harvey was doing shots in the kitchen when he spotted her. The golden mask she wore covered half her face but he would know that red hair anywhere. Senior prom had been in the theme of a masquerade ball and while some masks now lay discarded all over the room, more people had chosen to remain hidden behind theirs. There was something freeing about pretending to be someone else. Even for just one night.

Donna was a vision as she twirled on the makeshift dance floor, almost as drunk as she had gotten on her sixteenth birthday. She’d left their group a little while ago and Harvey forced himself not to follow her. But now, his eyes found her again, a song that beckoned him closer no matter where he was or what he was doing.

His heart always called him to her. Yet he never listened.

Harvey Specter had known Donna Paulsen since the first day of pre-school when she told him that she liked the puppy on his sweater and then firmly declared them friends. He had been listening to her ever since.

_And she had become so much more to him than just a friend._

Donna was the person he called at three in the morning when he’d just awoken from a nightmare. And he was the boy who was always there at every single one of her plays. Sleepovers where they spent all night binging some show or the other on Netflix was when he felt most at peace. He was the one to hold her while she cried after hearing the news of her grandfather’s death. And she was the one to hold him whenever he crumbled under the weight of his mother’s secret.

And that was why he could never tell her his own secret.

Donna deserved the entire world and Harvey was nothing but broken glass who would end up destroying her one day.

_He wasn’t good enough._

But he couldn’t break his stare and just then there was something reckless in the air or maybe it was the alcohol running through his veins. However, for the first time, he gave into that indescribable pull.

So he found himself walking towards her and placing his hands on her hips, pulling her flush against him. He was drunk on tequila and drunk on her as she moved against him, that very moment crackling with electricity.

Briefly, he was a prince and he snatched a pair of stars from the sky for her to wear in her eyes.

The rest of the room faded away as they danced together, twin flames lighting up the night.

And when she gazed at him with dark eyes filled with hunger, mere inches away from him, Harvey met her halfway as she began to close the distance and finally silenced the screams within him.

Galaxies exploded in his soul as he kissed her. She tasted like every one of his dreams but sweeter all the same. They were the only splash of colour in a grey universe, everything that existed paling in comparison to all that they were.

The world was a blur as Harvey took her hand and led her upstairs. He had crashed at Conner’s a few times now and knew which guest room was the best.

Falling into the bed, their quiet giggles echoed off the little bubble they’d built around themselves. Masks were thrown to the floor and then they were kissing again and Harvey never wanted to stop. There was magic in the atmosphere or maybe that was just Donna because _god she was beautiful_. Her curls were messily strewn across the pillow and her lips were slightly swollen and the simple sight of her was enough to leave him breathless.

He leaned down to plant a kiss against her neck and the sigh that fell from her lips left him in pieces. As he began to suck at her flesh, she moaned and it was the most exquisite sound he’d ever heard.

On that night, Harvey discovered heaven as he unraveled over and over again at the hands of Donna.

  
Harvey opened his eyes to find that his head was pounding and his left arm was numb. But it was the realisation that Donna was curled up against him that knocked all the air out of his lungs. The night before came rushing back and he licked his lips as the memory of her taste assaulted him.

She was on top of his arm but Harvey didn’t dare move so there he remained, frozen. He allowed himself the luxury of simply staring at her, at the way her mouth hung open a bit and the tangle her hair had become. He watched the pure contentment on her face as she slept, fully aware of the fact that he was being a little creepy. But he basked in the moment, wishing it could last forever.

However the universe didn’t give a damn about what he wanted.

Slowly, Donna’s eyes fluttered open.

She sat up, groaning as she did so and Harvey already mourned the loss of contact.

Suddenly, her hand flew to her mouth and without wasting a second, he grabbed the wastepaper basket next to the nightstand on his side of the bed. No sooner had he handed it to her that she began throwing up. Harvey reached forward, holding her hair back the way he did whenever she was suffering from hangover while she emptied the contents of her stomach.

When she was done, she placed the bin on the floor and leaned against the headboard, her eyes falling shut.

“Who let me drink that much?” she croaked out.

“You always ask that and yet never listen to me when I try to stop you,” he said.

“Shut up.”

The corners of his mouth automatically turned up as she grumbled but it was empty. He knew what was coming.

“We um,” she began after opening her eyes to look at him. “We didn’t...”

“We just made out,” he interrupted. “If I remember correctly.”

Harvey’s brain had been an alcoholic wasteland but he would never forget that night. He was still burning from her touch.

“Right,” she nodded, dropping her gaze as she stared at everything but him.

“Where’s my phone?” she asked, changing the subject. “I told my parents I’d be spending the night at Emily’s. She better have covered for me.”

Donna’s little purse had been discarded on the floor at his side so he reached down and collected it for her.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, pulling out the device.

Harvey watched as she typed away, trying to ignore the dread that pooled in his stomach.

“I told Em to pick me up so I’m gonna go downstairs and wait,” she told him.

“I could have dropped you home,” he said, not wanting to say goodbye just yet.

“You look as shitty as I feel,” she snorted. “Stay here and sleep it off.”

“You look worse,” he countered but it was a lie.

Even with her smudged lipstick and messy eye makeup she was still breathtaking.

Donna retorted by flipping him off before she got out of bed to pick up her shoes and mask from the floor.

All of a sudden he recalled the time when they were six and Donna kissed him because she wanted to know what was the big deal about first kisses. But it was Harvey who had gotten the answer to that question. That was when he realised that it was the _person_ that mattered, not the kiss. He remembered thinking that he wanted to marry her, but he had been too afraid to tell her that.

As Donna stood in the middle of the room, her heels dangling from her fingers, that same fear came rushing back.

“We were drunk,” she blurted out. “It wasn’t..it didn’t-”

“It didn’t mean anything,” he finished.

The words were bile on his tongue but he couldn’t turn back. There wasn’t anything magical in the air anymore and the recklessness within him had disappeared. The harsh reality of the new day stripped him of all of his dreams. He was nothing but a shattered boy again.

Relief and something else flashed in her eyes but he refused to dwell on it. He _couldn’t_.

“Exactly,” she nodded. “So we put this out of our minds and never speak of it again.”

Harvey nodded wordlessly because he didn’t trust himself to speak. If he did, he would fall apart.

“This is just like when were six,” she tried to joke as she nervously ran a hand through her hair.

“Well not _exactly_ like it,” he stated lightly even as his heart broke.

She smiled at that but it was the saddest thing he’d ever seen and he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and never let go.

The seconds ticked by as she lingered, staring at him, waiting to see if something would be done. She was standing on the edge of the world and while Harvey had started falling long ago, he couldn’t let her follow.

So he didn’t do a thing.

“Goodbye Harvey,” she finally uttered, so softly he barely heard her.

Every cell in his body was begging him to stop her but the phrase _not good enough_ kept repeating in his head on a loop. Hope and doubt warred in his soul and in the end, it was the latter that won.

It always did.

She walked away, drenched in his silence because every syllable that mattered was lodged in his throat.

“Goodbye Donna,” he whispered to the ghost of her, long after she’d left.

He lay back down, soaking the white sheets in the blood that poured from his chest.

Harvey was made up of jagged edges and splinters and Donna would only cut herself if she got too close.

_She deserved better._

He wouldn’t let her build a home in the ash and ruins that was his life.

So he held on to the memory of her touch the way he couldn’t hold on to her. He was his mother’s son and his hands were meant for destruction. Not _her_.

The noose tightening around his neck almost drowned out his headache so he closed his eyes and tried to drift off. Tried to get away.

But a lesson that Harvey would soon learn was that it was impossible to outrun his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> My inspiration has been a bitch lately so I really hope this is okay. Thanks for reading!


End file.
